First-grader Grace Taylor picks up her math work at Vista del Mar Elementary School in San Clemente. Capistrano Unified trustees say that to preserve all district jobs and programs, including the 20:1 student-teacher ratio in the primary grades, all employees must take a 10 percent pay cut.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – To Capistrano Unified’s “reform”-minded school board, the solution to the district’s $25 million budget shortfall is simple – persuade all employees to take a 10 percent pay cut.

That’s the recommendation trustees presented at a Thursday board meeting to preserve all jobs and programs districtwide, and it’s inflaming tensions in a school community still reeling from years of political turmoil.

“I find it personally insulting that you feel the budget crisis can be balanced on our backs,” Capistrano Unified food-service worker Terry Hause told trustees Thursday night, adding that she makes less than $50,000 a year after 17 years with the district.

Capistrano Unified trustees don’t have the power to require employees to take a pay cut – that’s something union leaders would have to agree to – but for the district’s seven elected leaders who ran on the politically popular “reform” platform, going head to head with the district’s unions may be their most aggressive move yet.

“In the absence of any negotiated reduction in salary/benefits, staff has prepared a plan that results in an ongoing reduction to general fund expenditures of approximately $25 million in fiscal year 2009-10,” a Thursday budget memo says. “Reductions include a variety of measures such as elimination of programs, spending reductions, organizational restructuring, employee layoffs and transfers.”

But in the politically volatile Capistrano Unified School District, tensions over the negotiation process – which began just last month – have been spilling over regularly into public meetings.

On March 9, the day trustees authorized issuing pink slips to 262 classroom teachers, board President Ellen Addonizio said in a joint trustee statement that the district’s ability to restore jobs and programs would be determined by the unions’ willingness to make concessions.

“Hopefully, we can negotiate contracts that will result in no employees being laid off and some programs being restored,” Addonizio said. “This will require salary rollbacks since roughly 85 percent of our general fund goes to labor expenses. CUSD personnel didn’t experience salary rollbacks this year like so many in the private sector.”

Teachers union President Vicki Soderberg fired back at that meeting, saying, “Success won’t come with one side coming up with one answer.”

And Ronda Walen, president of the union representing Capistrano’s nonclassroom classified employees, said in an open letter to trustees that their tactics were creating an “atmosphere of distrust.”

“Your statement appears to me to be a preemptive move to set the employees up to take the blame for the difficult, unpopular decisions you are soon going to be forced to make,” Walen said. “Setting up the employees to be the scapegoats for your inability or unwillingness to be accountable for the decisions you are going to have to make is irresponsible and unconscionable.”

None of Capistrano Unified’s union leaders showed up for Thursday’s meeting, but parents also criticized the trustees’ tactics.

“Our teachers are amazing and they deserve our support,” parent LeAna Bui of Rancho Santa Margarita told trustees. “I agree payroll has to be considered, but please can we keep the negotiations civil and respectful for the teachers who deserve that?”

Also at Thursday’s meeting, trustees announced they had made some modest progress in paring the $25 million in cuts.

Trustees said they figured out a way to preserve the Advancement Via Individual Determination program and the music program in the fourth and fifth grades – programs previously proposed to be eliminated.

They also said they would be able to increase class sizes in the fourth through 12th grades by an average of 0.5 students each, instead of one student.

But the popular 20:1 student-teacher ratio in the primary grades remains on the chopping block, as well as scores of other jobs and programs.

“As parents, we will accept the budget as long as we are convinced we have eliminated the fat at the top,” parent Susan Homma of Mission Viejo told trustees after the presentation.

Homma presented an alternative budget cuts plan to trustees that she said a group of “concerned parents” developed to preserve the class-size reduction program in the first through third grades.

But the parents’ plan – much like the school board’s hard-line stance on salary cuts – relies largely on every Capistrano employee taking five days of unpaid leave next year.

“We can do better than all of these plans,” Trustee Mike Winsten said. “The optimal plan is not yet here.”

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